Elysian Fantasies
by sleepingdead
Summary: After realizing that Shuichi has been cheating on him, Yuki Eiri is pushed over the edge. With his stress doubled by the prescence of nightmares, Yuki lashes out at the one closest to him. EiriXShuichi, EirixKitazawa(in theory) Finished
1. Chapter 1

Warnings: Yaoi, gore, craziness, and suicide. All that good stuff. 

I actually labeled this as 'angst.' I can't believe it.

**Elysian Fantasies**

**Chapter 1**

The life that I am living now isn't so much of a dream than it is a nightmare; even as I can feel the genial breath rhythmically caressing my bare chest as it glides about in a tranquil slumber, my body tenses in defense against the fierce onslaught of trembling that the raging tempest tapping angrily at my window wishes to bestow upon me. The lithe body upon me seems almost to be grafted to my own with a strength that can only belong to one lost deep within the fleeting fantasies of a dream, though I wish it to be no other way. A time that now seems so distant once held for me horrific visions that would haunt me even in the sunlight, though that was all put to its end by the very being that brought meaning back to my life, and I can only hope to repay him by belonging to him entirely, but especially now in the stillness amidst the torrent outside, I am left to ponder all the ways that I am failing him. Old habits of a past that I cannot abandon come rushing to the surface like instinct before I even have a chance to think, and in the end he is always the one in tears. And yet, despite that, he still comes back, always, sobbing for forgiveness even though he knows as well as I do that he had done no wrong. His life would be one of paradise if it were not for me, though without me, in his eyes, it would be even worse than it is now. I am left in awe at the untainted cruelty that my very existence means to him, even though he is so content he does not realize how very little he has.

The dark of the night is defeated for one glorious moment, and in this moment I am endowed the privilege to gaze upon the voluptuous beauty that clings to me as if in fear. It is an ephemeral moment, so fleeting that I become bitter that I am not allowed to look further upon the unadorned loveliness.

I am nothing less than in love with him; I can't decide when exactly this happened, but somewhere along the way it became more and more difficult to push him away until my callous words hurt me more than they did him, and that is precisely why I can state without any doubt that I have failed him, for now he seeks attention from others in ways that I always thought were beyond him. At first it was just his occasionally wandering eyes that brought me mild discomfort, but as of late it has become more: there are marks on his body that would only surface from rough sexual activity, he smells of fragrances that do not belong to him, and, seemingly worst of all, he has come to be able to ignore me.

Just thinking about it causes me to be as enraged as the tempest outside, and I find my body wracked with painful rancor as I wonder just who has had the pleasure to steal my Shuichi from out of my arms, and if this person enjoyed him as much as they ought to have. Over and over again I have the rancid vision of Shuichi ensconced in another's arms, misty with passion and screaming out someone else's name. The face is always different, but no matter what, each time I see this image the pain welled inside of me seethes just a bit more.

But, still, I love him more than anything, and so I cannot bring myself to confront him in fear of losing him entirely. Even now, at least part of him still belongs to me.

I release a deep sigh at my thoughts, and this causes him to stir awake with eyes fluttering open to shine the flashes of light that the tempest provides for him. I force a smile in his direction, and he appears startled at the sight of it, though I do not heed his inquisitive glance. I cannot help but succumb to his transcendent appeal; I take his lips, which are full and seductively dark against his pale face, with my own and admire the room around me, once colorful though now muted down to shades of gray in the darkness, as I try to allow myself a moment of bliss, even a brief one, though I am shown no pity. There is no passion from his side, and promptly he pulls away without mercy.

"I'm tired," he whines in a voice that is painful only due to the meaning that the words imply to me.

I am not nearly as voluble with my speech as I am with my writing, and therefore I am merely able to stutter out his name before lapsing into a choked silence.

He must have heard the pain in my voice, because now he's peering at me with a curious expression that seems almost to be attacking my very soul; he can't even guess that I know what he's done, so deluded he is in his own world.

"If you really want—" he starts, but I hastily stop him with a glare so fierce that it rivals the tempest outside.

"Forget it," I say, vanquishing all the pain from my voice by turning it into an indifferent mutter. I push him away from me in order to be sure it's clear that I am disgusted with him, but rather than ordering him out of my room, I leave myself in a manner that only comes about as pathetic.

I stop only to grab my coat and slip on my shoes before exiting. I find myself behaving like this often when life begins to hurt too much, though now I wish I wasn't so much like this. The storm outside is just as fierce as it sounded rapping against my window inside, and I have to retreat to myself inside my coat in order to retain what little body heat escapes the angry claws of the wind. I don't know where I'm going; more often than not I stumble along the path of the wind. Due to the storm, the world is deserted, and with a touch of self-repercussion, I think to myself that this, this is as close to paradise as I'll ever get.

……………

I don't want to look at Seguchi's worried face, so instead my eyes focus upon the wispy trail of the thin line of smoke snaking its way upwards into a stealthy escape from the tip of my cigarette. I've always enjoyed watching smoke; it has a unique movement present in nothing else I've seen yet. I could stare at it for hours—I have before, back when my mind was so troubled that my brain seemed to move like waves in an ocean. That was before I met Shuichi. I suppose I'll become that person once again, soon.

"Eiri-san, this isn't healthy," Seguchi's voice interrupts my thoughts. I once again marvel at it—it's texture, placidity, and pitch. It shouldn't belong to a man. Every time I hear it I am awed.

I casually lift my eyes to his, but I allow them to fall upon meeting his gaze onto the excessively finished wood of the tabletop as I once again wonder how exactly it was that Seguchi found me in the darkness of the storm on some deserted street in the backwoods of the city. He's always had a sort of knack for that type of thing. But, then again, I suppose he's always had a knack for just about anything, especially if it concerns me. That's the way it is—when Shuichi lets me down, Seguchi's there to pick up the pieces. I assume it all comes from some underlying obsession he has with me, stemming from who knows where, and paired with a man like him leaves me with a companion that holds for me true undying loyalty.

"Shuichi's cheating on me," I whisper, my voice having succumbed to the pain. I raise my eyes, though not without reluctance due to the feebleness that is no doubt gathering inside them, and find that he does not appear the least bit surprised. He's probably known the whole time, due to his uncanny ability to know everything. Still, his eyes hold a trace of sympathy within them, and for that I am almost grateful.

"You wouldn't agree, though, that perhaps Shuichi is doing this not because he loves this other person, but because you have failed to let him understand that you love him, and therefore he has ventured out to find the love that he doesn't think he has?"

His words sting my ears like poison. I had already admitted to myself the nature of the situation and my unquestionably guilty part in it, though it still tastes like venom to hear my very own thoughts repeated aloud to me, especially by someone such as Seguchi. Because of that, I cannot respond and resort to nervously twirling my cigarette in my mouth, as Seguchi's searching eyes seem to be slicing me up and looking at my insides. He's the only one besides Shuichi who's ever made me feel vulnerable—he knows and understands me much too well, more than I can ever hope to know him, and that's why he can so accurately read my every thought.

This silence is so painful, I have an undeniable urge to break it, though some hidden fear welled inside of me prevents me from being able to think of anything halfway intelligible to mutter, and so, in fear of stuttering out some idiocy, I remain silent and allow Seguchi's eyes to rip me apart. By now I must be hunched over like one of those ancient creatures that barely resemble humans at all, the ones that you try to be nice to, but you cannot deny to yourself that their grotesquely withered features are gruesome and attract no unnecessary glances. For a moment, I find myself thinking of what I will be when I become old… At the tender age of sixteen I had convinced myself that I would be murdered by my own inner demons during my sleep, and since then, though I find myself still breathing this rancid air, I have not fretted about this particular thought. Even now though, it doesn't seem like I have the slightest chance of living past thirty; if all else fails, the thick buildup of tar in my lungs will lead me to a long overdue death in my late thirties, but I can't imagine being an unwanted spectacle that causes people to gag from just a glance. My good looks, which not only launched my writing career but also attracted Shuichi in the first place, will ever so slowly wane away through the years. I wonder, will Shuichi still want me when I'm ugly?

Of course, that's something of a mute point. Shuichi doesn't even want me now, and I'd hardly call myself aging just yet. But then again, what will Shuichi do without me? I don't rely on my looks anymore to sell my novels; when I'm ancient, I'll still be able to write, but Shuichi won't have half the following that he does now. What will he do once his little band falls from fashion?

Those thoughts bring an involuntary smirk to my lips. I like this idea, that Shuichi needs me.

Because, I suppose, I need him, and I like to think that I'll be able to rely on his unwavering presence. That's it; I need him. I do. But I can't say it to him. It would rip me apart, cause my heart to explode, lead me to a premature gory death.

At least that way, I won't become old. But, that way, I won't die pretty either. I suppose I have to acquiesce to my fate. Frankly, death isn't a beautiful thing. I've seen all too much of it to be able to argue with that idea. No matter what, when I die, my beauty will vanquish along with my life, and I won't be able to prevent Shuichi from seeing it. I've attended funerals before, many more than I would have originally liked, and I know that no matter how skilled the mortician, death can never be hidden. There's something about cadavers that is sickeningly obvious.

I remember what Sensei looked like when he was dead. His eyes were still open.

He's the reason I can never tell Shuichi. He's the reason that I should be dead and I'm not. The memories of that time are scattered, but some things still remain sharp in my mind. Images mostly, and words. I can still see his gruesomely dead eyes staring at me, piercing through me even after Seguchi grabs me to protect me from him. The room was so dark; everything had faded down to gray, everything except the shimmering blood that pooled in a thickness that vaguely resembled that texture of molasses around his head. The one window revealed a glaring day outside, so piercingly luminous that it seemed as though it should have lit the room a little better, but instead it had chosen not to venture into the darkness and provided an appropriate contrast to the dull, dank atmosphere inside.

In this light, I can remember earlier that day, what I had whispered into his ear, under the shade of his favorite tree that so pleasantly blocked the glare and the heat.

_"I love you, Yuki."_

I don't know why I had chosen that particular diction, in that I had never once called him anything but Sensei, and now I wish I hadn't said what I did. Back then, my voice seems to me so similar to Shuichi's now… Almost exact. But that can't be right; perhaps I've just grafted Shuichi's voice unto my own, but still, that doesn't change the fact that everyday, due to Shuichi's undying love for me, I hear it, my very own past which I had buried deep within myself ripped painfully from my chest and whispered to me in frighteningly real situations. I wish he would call me Eiri.

That's why I could never say it. It seems so simple, but it has so much meaning to me. _"I love you, Shuichi."_ But I don't want Yuki to love Shuichi. I want Yuki to love me.

"Eiri…san…"

I didn't realize how scattered my thoughts had become. When my thoughts are like that, I can't be bothered by anything else. Even now, as I am returning to reality, I can feel a dull headache gathering around the top of my forehead, where my closed fist is pulling at my thick strands that now must messily knotted due to my hand's presence. My cigarette has nearly burned down past use, and my hands are actually trembling. One sight that has had no alteration, however, is that of Seguchi; I can still feel him staring straight through me, despite my lack of eye contact.

I don't like this place. I have to get out. For the first time I can fully feel the repugnant contrast arising from the dull, whining artificial lights overhead, buzzing in a ghastly yellow color, colliding with Seguchi's overly bright gaze, sparkling even, and mismatching with what is only mildly annoying by itself. I hate this.

Rising to my feet, I am careful to disregard all of Seguchi's inquisitions without revealing that I hear anything he says. I move out into the night, vanishing into the darkness before Seguchi has a chance to follow. I am grateful that the wind has died down and the storm has screamed itself to sleep, leaving nothing the hinder my advance home.

……………

I have a strange feeling of embarrassment coursing through my body as I enter into my flat, now lit with nearly all of the electric lights and reminding me of the lighting at the café I had just left. Shuichi must have followed me after my uncontrolled burst, though from the looks of it he didn't get past the living room. I silently slip off my shoes and surreptitiously creep towards the bedroom with a definite plan to wake Shuichi when I get there. I know he will think it's his fault and apologize, and I want that so badly now. Just to hear those words, "I'm sorry," and just for now I'll allow myself to think that he's apologizing for betraying me, and in his words he's making a promise to never do it again and always be there for me. It will never be that way, but just for now, I want to think that, to allow myself something sweet to taste after drowning in all this fetid air.

Sometimes, however, it is impossible to taste sweetness when there is nothing sweet to be tasted. I stop just before turning the doorknob and perk my ears at the sound of Shuichi's voice. I can just picture him sitting on his heels and cradling the phone against his shoulder as he whines his woes, his guilt, and his pain into his friend's ear. I always used to hate this image, but now it seems to be giving me some sort of victory. With another smirk touching my lips, I press my ear against the door and listen hard, having to work to decipher the muffled words through the wood.

"What should I do?"

A tingling anxiousness creeps up into my chest as I think that I breaking some sort of rule by eavesdropping on his end of the conversation, and that I may get in trouble in the unlikely chance that he should find out. I am filled with a sort of seething glee, the kind that a student feels when attempting to infiltrate the hallways all the while avoiding the penetrating gaze of the campus securities.

"But… I don't know… What if he doesn't come back?"

At these words I feel my body almost overcome with the excitement of victory—Shuichi is worrying about me. Becoming bold in my triumph, I turn the knob and push open the door just the slightest bit, willing it with all my strength not to squeak, so that I can stick my head inside and see the exquisite sight that is sure to great me. And I see the scene exactly as I had pictured it, except for the fact that Shuichi's back is facing me instead of his side. But, what's more, I can now hear the voice on the other line all too clearly.

_"What do you mean, 'What if he doesn't come back?' Do you want him to? If he doesn't, then you should be happy—that leaves nothing to worry about."_

The muffled tones through the phone's receiver leaves the owner of the voice anonymous, but despite that I can feel a deep-seated jealousy writhe inside of me, winning its own battle and destroying the last of the previous glee I had been feeling. The rage is so powerful that I find myself gripping onto the doorframe for support, but surprisingly I manage to keep myself under control and force my ears to listen on.

"But…" Shuichi whispers, his shoulders slumping almost imperceptibly.

_"Don't worry so much, Shu. Listen, I'm tired. You've got to work tomorrow, so don't you dare let him disrupt your sleep, okay?"_

"Okay."

And then I hear it; words so beautiful that they cross some thin line and become disgusting.

_"I love you, Shuichi."_

Something I've never been able to bring myself to say. Words that I've so often wished were unnecessary. Words that Shuichi shouldn't need to hear because they are so painful to say. Reality, though, seems to be insistent on fighting against my every wish, and for that I am suffering more than I ever thought I could.

"…I love you too."

All traces of the victorious smirk have been cleaned from my face. I sink back across the hallway against the opposite wall in my sore defeat. I hear the click of the receiver in its cradle, but I do not lift myself to my feet. I can't. I'm crippled now.

Think of paradise. Paradise. A beautiful place. Whatever is beautiful to you. That's what my therapist told me to do when I encounter stressful situations. Paradise. It doesn't work, though. Whenever I try to think of a place, or a life, or anything that would be paradise for me, all that comes floating to my mind are those eyes, those dead gray eyes, staring at me, reveling in my guilt, piercing me even through Seguchi's protection.

Paradise. Paradise is revenge, destroying the very thing that destroyed you. Paradise is death.

I had that gun in my hands, a cigarette in my mouth, in the very room where I first found paradise. That bottle was still there. I'm surprised that the blood was gone. I had that gun right there, in my hands, and I could have held it to my head, I could have gone in the very same way you did, shot through the skull by my hands. If I had just done that, then I would be dead. I wouldn't have to worry anymore.

Why don't you love me? Yuki…

And you, Shuichi. Why don't you need me like I need you? What can I do to make you…?

_"Iowa? Where's that?"_

_ "It's in America, idiot."_

_ "Is it near New York?"_

_ "No."_

_ "Then… Why'd you buy a house in Iowa?"_

A place where Shuichi will need me, a place where Shuichi will be lost without me… A place that no one knows about except for Shuichi himself.

A thin, frail smile touches my lips, seeming to me even now alien in some way, like it had no earthly place to be anywhere near my face. It's a ghost of a smile, I'm sure, making me feel sick even just knowing that it is there without actually being able to see it myself. Slowly I move to my feet, enjoying the way time seems to have decided to quit rushing so hurriedly, and move inside the room, which is now dimly lit only by the hall lights. I can see the pink strands shining in an almost phosphorescent glow, so slick each strand is, as it moves across the pillow into darkness so that I am now only greeted by the beautiful face that vastly outshines whatever light is present in the world. The smile is still lingering on my lips, and I can only assume that it frightens him, especially considering the look on his face: pale, with eyes wide, though touched with a hint of…relief, is it?

"Yuki," he manages to whine, even though his voice is subdued to merely a whisper. There's something about his voice that just comes across as being whiny; I don't know whether that is due to his actual voice or the way he speaks, or whether it is some trait that is fused with his personality, which is why it doesn't show while he's singing.

I continue to move towards the bed, letting the silence linger only until I've reached it and am kneeling down beside it. The smile still tugs at my lips, even though I am still at a loss as to why—it's almost as if it's some sort of coping device, or something. Maybe I actually have gone insane. I've been in those institutions before, and those sick people have a tendency to smile a lot. I can't imagine a reason though, since it seems like there's obviously a reason for those people to have sacrificed their sanity, and generally a reason great enough to give up something as important as that would have to be worse than a person can handle. My therapist told me to smile when I feel depressed, since apparently it has been proven that smiling for a certain amount of time can actually improve one's mood. Those crazy people in the hospital, they smiled so much they went insane.

"Who were you talking to on the phone?" I ask, the smile touching my voice and causing it to have a harsh, almost cynical note to it, even though I never had any intention of it sounding that way. I don't like it at all. My body feels like it's betraying me.

A look of guilt flashes across Shuichi's face, and my smile widens as I realize that that obvious expression just wiped away any last trace of doubt that he has been cheating on me. It leaves me feeling empty inside, and, at the same time, somehow relieved.

"Are you okay, Yuki? Where did you go? You look…you look sick," he whispers, his voice still possessing that trace of a whine to it. He lowers his eyes to the floor, and suddenly looking at his face seems so much duller than before.

"Shuichi," I say in an almost singsong voice, winning back his gaze on mine. "How would you like to go somewhere? Just the two of us?"

He actually looks genuinely pleased for a moment, and his eyes brighten in relief and gratitude that far surpasses anything I've ever seen from him, but it immediately dies away into darkness again, and once again I am relinquished of the glow of his eyes when he lowers them back to the floor.

"I can't. I've got work to do. We have a new album to be released, and we still have a few finishing touches left, so I have to--"

I can't take his refusal. I can feel it pounding its way around my head and chest, freezing my body bit by bit through my veins, causing my muscles to flinch and tighten in an inhuman amount of stress. Shuichi cries out, a painful sound that resembles the dying whine of a sick wolf, and for a moment I can't understand why, though I soon realize it's because my hand has tightened around his wrist. Taking the chance presented to me, I yank him out of the bed, causing him to fall to the floor in a mass of limbs and bed sheets, though I don't let his wrist free, and therefore twist his arm painfully around behind him.

I don't bother to exert the energy to pack, so caught up in the momentum I am. I drag Shuichi around my flat, ignoring the incoherent screams escaping from his throat, as I gather up a few important items, namely my laptop, a few pairs of clothes for the both of us, and our passports out of the drawer in my desk. With the shrill amount of noise he is making, I assume the neighbors will be contacting the police in a matter of minutes, but I intend to be long gone before they ever have a chance to arrive. I slip on my shoes, glad at my previous decision to let my coat remain on, since now it would be incredibly difficult to put it on without letting Shuichi free.

I continue to drag him behind me until we reach my car, at which I proceed in throwing him into the passenger seat and darting around the hood in a quick gamble before entering as well and snatching his wrist again just as he opens the door in an attempt to escape. His face is a mask of horror now, so pale that his color rivals my own skin tone. Worst of all, I think, there are droplets of tears soaking his face, and his body is actually trembling, reminding me of how my body trembled not even an hour ago in the storm. He's stopped screaming at least, but only I think because he has used up his voice and his body is too tense to be able to make such a loud noise.

"Yuki," his voice is painstakingly soft, carefulness written in every tone, but despite that, it still has that whine to it. "I'm sorry, Yuki. Please, just let me go, and we'll work this out, okay? We'll be okay, I promise."

I find myself uninterested, though, as I struggle to start the car without removing my hand from his wrist. I'm only thankful that I had purchased an automatic, when faced with the choice a few years ago. Eventually I manage, and finally let go of him once we're at a high enough speed so that he wouldn't dare try to jump out of the car. I can feel his anxiety in the atmosphere, and his fear begins to seep into me, causing me to be afraid. I begin to consider letting him out, just to allow him the satisfying feeling of relief, but quickly think better of it. This plan is my last resort. If I were to let him go now, everything would just end. Shuichi would end.

I can't handle that. My mind begins to draw the unbidden image on its own, and I have to fight against myself not to let it float long enough in my consciousness so that I can see it fully. But sometimes I let my guard down, and it slips into my dreams and haunts me.

It's not Yuki lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, with dead eyes staring at me as if to convert my own eyes to their state. It's Shuichi there, his energetic body impossibly limp, his hair greasy and dull, and his entire being containing the look of the dead, that undeniable look. I am only thankful that even my gruesome mind is at a lack of ability to create an image of what Shuichi's eyes will look like once they have lost all their life. Shuichi's eyes will never be that way. They don't possess it in them to be able to die, to be dead and empty. Yuki stared at me and beckoned for me after he was dead, but Shuichi can't do that. Not so long as his love still holds a part of me. That's why I can't let him go right now; if I were to, I would be able to see his dead eyes to compliment his dead body, lying on the darkened floor of that old, musky New York apartment.

……………

Until next time,

Cassi.


	2. Chapter 2

Elysian Fantasies Chapter 2 

The shade under Sensei's tree is always best at noon.  Despite the limited area of shade due to the position of the sun, the leaves of the tree seem to be angled just right so that at noon, under this tree is the most comfortable spot in all of New York, even when compared to those buildings with the refrigerated air that makes the skin feel clammy and cold when compared to the heat inside the body.  The summertime humidity fails to venture under here, and leaves the whole area more desirable than anywhere else.

            I love days like this, when the coolness of the shade makes Sensei fall asleep.  Although I've always rather enjoyed his lessons, since he is an author and writing is my favorite pastime, seeing him asleep and being able to admire him closer than from afar makes me feel wholly relaxed and content.  Thoughts of my hardships in Japan and my struggles with my father don't even threaten to enter my mind and trouble me on days like this.

            Today, I feel braver than usual.  I don't know why, but something about today is different, so plainly different that it's almost foreboding, and I take the warning to heart.  If I don't do something today, I will never do anything at all.  Crawling across Sensei's lap so that I'm straddling him on my knees, I lean forward and place a feather kiss on his lips.  I never had many friends in Japan, so I've never kissed anyone before, but I feel like I'm doing it right.  I lean back and watch Sensei until his eyes flutter open to reveal those beautiful blue eyes.

            I wish I had blue eyes.  I don't know how mine came out to be the color they are.  I've never liked my eyes.  They just don't seem to belong to me.

            "Eiri-kun, what are you doing?" Sensei asks, a smile playing at his lips again.  I lean forward to kiss him again, now that he's awake, but he pulls away, discouraging me from trying further.

            "Sensei…" I begin, but my words trail off.  That wasn't a good way to start, but I can't think of anything else, so I continue on anyway.  "I love you," I say as a thick blush quickly swarms my cheeks.  Immediately, though, I realize I haven't finished.  It wasn't right.  It has to be perfect.  I pause for the briefest of seconds before repeating myself, fully and clearly, and this time with the appropriate ending.  "I love you, Yuki."

            "I love you too, Shuichi."

            No, that isn't right.  Shuichi hasn't come into the picture yet.  I don't meet him for another…six years.

            I look back at the tree and see Shuichi laying there, his eyes closed and a peaceful smile touching his face.  I want to show Shuichi this tree sometime, how wonderful the shade is here during the summertime.  I think Shuichi would just love a place such as this.

            Slowly I crawl over to where Shuichi is resting and touch his cheeks tenderly, only to be repulsed by the sickly coolness that is welling on their surface.  I pull away and look at him again, and notice for the first time that his hair is greasy and dull, his skin ghastly pale, and his body impossibly limp.  He's dead.  He has the dead look about him.  I'm only glad his eyes are closed, so that he can't stare at me.

            "Ah, Uesugi-kun, you've killed him," Sensei says, and I turn to see him standing there, just at the edge of the shade.

            "Please don't call me Uesugi-kun," I whisper, turning my eyes back to the dead Shuichi.

            "Then what shall I call you?"

            "Call me…" I start, but allow my voice to fade as I try to think of an answer.  I look back to Sensei for help.  I'm not Uesugi; that's my father's name.  My name is…  "Yuki Eiri."

            Sensei smiles, the same way he was smiling in that dark room with crazed eyes, and a cynical snort escapes his nose.  His head tilts to the side, and I watch as his eyes slowly slide down towards Shuichi.  I look too, though my body tenses when I see not Shuichi there, but Yuki Eiri, in his twenties, his blond hair a mess and his clothes uncharacteristically wrinkled.  He's dead too, I can tell, just by looking at him.  But despite that, he's beautiful, just the same as when he was alive.

            "Ah," I say, tilting my head to the side as I look over at Shuichi crouched on the ground in front of him.  "Shuichi-kun, you've killed him."

            "I'm sorry," Shuichi says, looking up at me apologetically.  "I didn't mean to.  Please forgive me, Sensei."

……………

            I actually welcome the usual suffocating sight of the coach seating of a cheap international flight, made worse that I am currently sitting, due to the fact that we were the last ones to board this flight, in one of the worst seats imaginable, right next to the wing where the loud roar rattles one's skull.  My dream is still vivid in my mind; it doesn't appear to be the kind that fades very fast.  With a shaky breath I glance over at Shuichi, who is staring out the window and craning his neck in order to see the ocean past the edge of the silver wing.

            "Shuichi," I whisper, remembering my nightmare still too clearly.  Shuichi flinches at the sound of my voice, and the gesture causes my blood to run cold.  I stare at his hand as he turns his head towards me, and I debate whether or not to lace his fingers with my own.  Finally I decide it's best not to, and lift my head up to meet his eyes.

            In my dream, though, I realize his eyes were all wrong.  His eyes are much more beautiful than what they were there.

            "Shuichi, don't be afraid anymore," I say, somewhat in way of apology.  "I'm not going to hurt you."

            Even now I'm feeling regret for what I did—not necessarily because technically that was kidnapping and thoroughly illegal, but because I hurt Shuichi and had made him afraid.  I've never wanted Shuichi to feel like that, much less because of me.  I guess the momentum of anger really got the better of me.  I wonder what I'm really capable of doing to him; maybe it would be better if I just let him move on with his new lover, whoever that may be.

            Even just the thought of that, though, sends anger running through my spine again, and I quickly decide against it.  The truth is, I know I'm capable of hurting Shuichi whether he's with me or not, but the problem is that I'll be more likely to hurt him if he's with someone else.  I've never been too wonderful at dealing with jealousy.  I am…just too selfish, I suppose.

            "Yuki," Shuichi says, and takes my hand in his own.  "You were having a bad dream, weren't you?  I'm sorry I didn't wake you up sooner."

            I look away from him, feeling something resembling disappointment overcome me.  I don't want him to change the subject, no matter how awkward or painful it is.  I want to know whether or not he's forgiven me.

            I close my fingers around his hand, relishing in just the small touch.  I suddenly realize that perhaps for a while there, I had actually thought I'd never be able to touch him again.  I don't know when I must have thought that, but I don't know any other reason for taking this much pleasure and relief from just holding his hand.

            Shuichi's eyes return to the window, and he leans back a little in his seat.  "Yuki, where are we going?"

            It dawns on me that I haven't told him anything yet, and the guilt rises a little bit more inside me when I realize that that must have only added to his fears.  "To America."

            "New York?" Shuichi asks, and I can detect a hint of apprehension in his voice.

            "Iowa," I correct and watch his face as the name spurs recognition in his eyes.  He turns to me again, a look of pure thought across his face.

            "Is…  Is this why you bought it, then?" he asks.  I ponder for a second about why I really did buy the house, and then slowly shake my head before letting it drop onto his shoulder.  I'm not tired, really, but rather I just want an excuse to be able to touch him a little bit more.  Even so, I manage to slip into a daze, so light that it couldn't be considered sleep.  I've always loved this place especially, when I'm not quite awake yet not quite asleep either.  Here, in this purgatory, I neither have to deal with the reality of the world nor the haunting of my nightmares.

……………

I'm still not entirely sure why I bought a house in Iowa.  I couldn't answer Shuichi when he asked, and I wouldn't be able to answer him were he to ask again.  I don't even know how I found this place, hidden in a clearing of cornfields along with the rest of the miniscule town.  This place is one for the elders, the ugly ancient people that I hope to never become, the people that I hate to look at.  In the very center of the town is the most luxurious of all old folks' homes.  It doesn't make much sense to me, but perhaps that was the appeal that this obscure town held for me, this idea that I will be surrounded by the people I hate.

At least, what dwindling population there is all speak English, each and every one of them, and their brains are so deteriorated that they would maybe be able to learn perhaps one or two words in Japanese.  Shuichi doesn't even know how to say "hello" in English, much less to ask for directions or figure out how to call a cab.  This place is in the middle of nowhere, and he's stuck here, his only escape route being me.  It's cruel of me, I know, to force him into situations where he has to depend on me, but I can't help it.  Not now.

            The house I have purchased is huge, especially when compared to the common house size in Japan.  It's old, too—probably one of the oldest still standing.  In fact, everything about this town is old: the people, the structures, and even the way of life.  Surrounded by nothing but farms and ranches, this place can't help but be overrun by typical American rednecks.  At least, those are the only 'young' people around, though I still have yet to see anyone under the age of forty, excluding the scattered little kids who seem to grow no older than eight.  The whole town reeks of conservatives, old people concrete in their 1950's way of life, and kids who are being fed false information in order to keep their faith lifelong.  Of course, I really have no right to criticize, but I can't help but wonder again and again why exactly I chose this place out of all the other possibilities.

            On the taxi ride out here, I could only watch the almost hypnotizing cornrows as they whisked by, admiring that so-called, "man walking the cornfields."  Shuichi was about ten times more interested, after apparently never seeing so much corn in his life.  Although it's not like Japan doesn't have corn, but Shuichi is just one of those sheltered city kids, I suppose.

            Still, something about the endless corn is relaxing and terrifying at the same time.  It can be seen in every direction, and it grows so tall that even looking at the sky does not block it completely out of vision.  Shuichi is absolutely fascinated, and I can only help but grin as I watch him run around and giggle like a little kid.  I can tell he's impressed by the sheer size of the house; he already took it upon himself to run throughout the hallways and rooms until he had fully explored the entire area. 

            "Yuki," I hear his voice as he creeps up behind me.  "I've chosen our room.  Come on and see."

            I turn around to see him take off down the hallway, though I do not go out of my way to follow him too closely; I have a pretty good idea of which one he's chosen.  In fact, I was pretty impressed with it myself when I came to see the house before I bought it.  It's a titanic master bedroom, coupled with an ivory bathroom that probably is the most valuable thing in the whole town.  I meander my way over to this room, and sure enough I find him sitting on the king-sized bed in the center of the room, his legs crossed and an excited grin plastered across his face.

            "Isn't it cool?" he says, and bounces a little on the mattress.  I nod curtly, though secretly pleased with his happiness.

            "It needs sheets," I utter.  "We can buy some not too far away.  I'll go do that now."

            "I'll come with!" Shuichi calls, jumping off the bed and hurriedly rushing to grab my arm.  "I want to see what this town is like!"  So he says, but I can tell it's more that he doesn't want to be left alone.  I nod silently and lead the way outside.

            The grocery store is only a few blocks away, though by cutting through a cornfield, which apparently belongs to me, it cuts the distance in half.  As we make our way through the narrow walkways in between the corn, Shuichi clutches onto my arm in both enchantment and uncertainty.  His eyes never lower, and continue to linger on the tops of the cornstalks, which tower even above my head, the entire time.  It's strange, inside the cornrows, though, there is an infectious silence that contaminates everything within it.  Even Shuichi remains quiet the whole way through, which is a marvel concept, especially considering his anxiousness.  It seems as though the whole world has disappeared, and even its voice cannot venture underneath the tall stalks of corn.

            Once we exit the cornfield, Shuichi's voice starts up again, chattering about how cool that place was, and I can hear the tractors and the wind and everything else of the world once again.  It's almost as if time had just stopped a moment there.

            The grocery store is small compared to those in the cities, but it seems to contain plenty enough items to live on.  I quickly pick out linens—cheap ones, though there are only cheap ones—and bring it up to the clerk, a man who appears to be in his fifties with a thick mustache and a wide torso.  He rings up my linens, eyeing us both curiously, and only when I take out my wallet to pay does he finally say anything.

            "The name's Kurt.  Kurt Westbrook.  You two appear to be new here, on account of I've never seen you around.  Where're you from?" the clerk says, donning an impossibly large grin, so incredibly open that it seems almost forced, as he holds out his hand in greeting.  I feel Shuichi's fist clench around the hem of my shirt, and I quickly glance down at him, studying his face.  I think it's just sunk in to him that people here don't speak Japanese.

            "I am Eiri Yuki," I say, taking his hand, despite my disgust with having to touch him.  "And this is Shuichi Shindou.  We've come from Japan."

            The man lifts his eyebrow at me as he lets go of my hand.  He appears to be surprised I have an accent, though I'm used to that by now.  I get it a lot in America.

            "Japan, eh?  Well, what a place you've chosen to come to.  You'd best be careful—most of the old folks here are leftovers from World War II, and quite a few of them are still bitter at you Japanese."

            I can tell he's trying to be polite, not to use the usual terms such as "Japs" or "Chinks," or whatever other offensive slang he's grown up with, but despite that I can't help but allow that sickly smile to cross my face again.  I had never considered it before, World War II making the old folks hate me, but anyway the idea is welcome.  It gives me a certain masochistic pleasure to think that these ancients hate me as much as I hate them.

            Setting a few bills down on the counter—American dollars, since I had all my money changed at the airport—I pick up my linens and drag Shuichi behind me out of the grocery store without bothering to thank the man or whatever other formality was expected of me.  We make our way back home in silence, even though this time we take the long way instead of cutting through the cornfield.

……………

            In the center of the town is a large park, decorated with a few trees here and there, and off to the side is a large public swimming pool.  I gaze at Shuichi perched on one of the wooden benches off the trail through the park as he aptly stares at the fence around the pool, listening with rapt attention to the gleeful screams of the little children inside.

            "Yuki," he says, only halfway turning his head towards me, though his eyes remained locked on the wall of the pool, despite the fact that he can't see past it.  "We should get swimming suits, don't you think?"

            My eyes trail down to the cigarette burning between my two fingers.  The wispy smoke is more difficult to see during a bright sunny day such as this one, but I watch it anyway, for lack of anything better to do.  The smoke seems to stretch itself out, one side growing faster than the other so that it curves and curls to the side.  A small breeze picks up and blows the smoke trail into nothingness, and I allow my eyes to return to their previous spot on Shuichi.

            "I don't like to swim," I give a long overdue reply before putting the cigarette back into my mouth.

            "Have you ever done it before?" Shuichi asks, smiling at me.  He stands and slowly makes his way over to where I'm sitting in an opposite bench, bending over so that our faces are level.

            "Yes."  I remove the cigarette from my mouth again and blow a puff of smoke into his face.  My action's result is just as intended—he winces and pulls away from me.

            "I bet you're just embarrassed because you're afraid of drowning."  Another smile flits across his face, and he takes a seat uncomfortably close to me for such a public place.  Instinctively my eyes roam around the park, studying my surroundings to make sure there are no passersby about to see our spectacle.  However, to my dismay, my eyes manage to target a pair of old men a little ways down the trail staring at us with equal loathing as I am at them.

            "You're an idiot," I say, pushing Shuichi away.  His lips curve into a luscious pout, and I have to look away from him again.  A subdued silence passes between us, though it is Shuichi who seems to be adamantly trying to fight it.

            "Yuki," he says, poking my shoulder playfully.  "How long are we going to be here for?"

            "You don't like it?"  I frown, even though I can't exactly say that I like it either.  Still, something about Shuichi's feelings strike a note of disappointment in me.

            "Well, no, it's not that, but…" his words trail off, and a tiny blush touches his face.  "I want to sing again."

            For a moment I lost in a maze of speechlessness, and I direly try to break it, but I only manage to choke out a few sounds.  I don't know why it strikes me as so novel, this idea that Shuichi misses singing.  I expected it anyway, but I hadn't really considered it in my plans.  I open my mouth with some brilliant speech in mind to say to him, only to be interrupted by a rather insulting irritation.

            "I never expected a foreigner to come to this little town."

            I guess, without turning around to see, that the possessor of the voice belongs to one of the old men that were gawking at us before.  The voice is rough and dry, burning like the noise of nails on a chalkboard, signaling that it can only belong to one of the many grotesquely withered ancients that inhabit this place.  I don't turn around to confirm my suspicion, though, and continue to stare at Shuichi apologetically, though I note that he is watching whoever's behind me with a curious attention.

            "Hey, Jap."

            Finally, my anger gets the better of me, and I turn with the worst scowl across my face that I can muster.  I am sure to be wearing that characteristic glare that everyone gets so uptight about, though the ancient in his thick old age doesn't even notice it.

            "Goddamn, you look like fags," the man blurts out, and I wince at the revolting appearance about him.  His head is wide and misshapen, covered in malignant red and purple spots.  Every vein sticks out a sickening shade of dark blue, and his skin is sagged and a discolored yellow.  I remove my eyes from him immediately, wishing I could look back at Shuichi without being too obvious.

            "At least we don't look like you," I manage through a jaw clenched with both anger and disgust.  I hear a low growl in the man's throat, though it is a vile sound, laced with the gurgle of overproduced mucus.

            "Look at this kid!" the ancient bellows, and with a twitch turns away.  I start to follow him with my eyes as he gimps away on his cane, though immediately my gaze is diverted to another figure that I had not noticed in my anger with the other.  This one's another ancient, barely looking any different so sickly he is in his appearance.

            "Forget about him," this ancient says with a grin that shows broken yellow teeth, rotten black with lack of care.  "And don't look so disgusted.  We're not as gross as you think.  Besides, you'll be like us someday too."

            I know I should accept his kind assurance, but I retort back anyway, I am so repulsed by his words.  "That's what I'm afraid of."

            The ancient chuckles, adding a few more thick creases among the already thousands of existing ones on his face.  Only now, with a smile, do I realize how droopy his skin is, like if I were to cut a slit in the top of his head, it would all slide off like an oversized outfit.

            "That's some attitude you've got there.  Anyway, I'm not fazed.  I bet to you, we all look the same, right?" he asks, his smile still stuck on his face, even though it looks as though it only remains that way because his skin caught somewhere on his skull.  "Well, to us, you young folks are all the same too.  And let me tell you, once you get this old, things fall into different perspective, and physical appearance isn't so great anymore."  He laughs again, and then starts to hobble away, though he stops once more.  "You'll realize later, when you come close enough to death, that it's better to be alive than to be pretty."  And with that, he continues on his way after his friend.

            I run a hand through my hair, feeling the silkiness that it naturally retains and imagining what it will feel like in fifty years—rough, old, gray, if it's even still there at all.  I can't imagine myself being ancient like those men; people like those two seem like they've never been young at all, their bodies are so far deteriorated and gone.  Ancient people are only slowly fading away, bit by bit, and one day they will disappear completely.  I'm not that weak.  I will never let that happen to me.  I will go out with a bang, leaving my memory fresh and painfully engrained upon the minds of the people who know me, rather than waning so slowly that those said people hardly notice when I finally succumb to death and vanish.  I will die gloriously, leaving people to think about me for years to come.

            Like…Sensei, leaving his memory on my brain to remain there until I myself die.  And I will leave such a memory on…Shuichi…

            Guiltily my eyes turn back to the one sitting beside me and staring at me inquisitively.  I can't do that—I don't want to do that to Shuichi.  Shuichi's so naïve now, I can't imagine him ever sitting here thinking about things like I am now.  I'm not that weak…

            But I can't fade away.  I can't do anything, or change anything.  I hate this world, this life that I am living, and this paradise that doesn't exist except in a place so obscure that it cannot be seen. 

            There is a paradise among the cornfields, and resolutely I grab Shuichi's hand to drag him to it, this place where time stops, where silence lingers, and where death can be found.  I lure him to follow me to this Elysian world.


	3. Chapter 3

Elysian Fantasies Chapter 3 

"When I was a teenager, I wrote stories for the kids at the hospital.  That was when I first wrote fantasy," Sensei says, smiling a warm smile that banishes all the coolness from under the shade of the tree.

            "Tell me one," I say, leaning in closer with eagerness.

            "Ah, Eiri-kun, they were all written for little kids," Sensei replies lazily, stifling a yawn.  "I don't think you'd like any of them."

            "Oh, please?" I persist.  "Just one.  I want to hear something you've written!"

            "All right," Sensei relents with a chuckle.  "But don't lose confidence in me if you don't like it."  He lifts his hand above his body, and his finger curves horizontally to point to a small distance off before us.  My eyes follow the direction in which his finger is aimed and come to rest on a young girl, clothed in a white kimono, sitting with her back to us on a boulder.  "Go talk to her," Sensei's words echo in my mind, and I follow his order without question as if hypnotized.

            She seemed very far away from the shady tree in the park, but seemingly in no time I stop just a few meters away from the boulder and stand awkwardly in place, unsure of what to say.

            "My name is Ayame," the girl says in a soft voice, but sweet to the ears.  It has an almost angelic tone to it, seeming to echo in both power and gentleness.  "I was given the power to dispense beauty a long time ago."

            "Why are you here?" I ask in the pause, feeling something close to fear overcoming me.

            "You asked for me, didn't you, Eiri-kun?  Tell me, do you think you're beautiful?" Ayame says in her lovely voice.

            I hesitate in answering.  "No one in Japan thinks so."

            "You didn't answer my question."

            I let out a sigh, fearing that I will sound arrogant with my words.  "Yes, I do.  I like the way I look."

            "And what would you do if your looks were marred beyond recognition, if you became ugly?"

            "I would," I start, and fall into silence.  I think about my life in Japan, where all the kids bully me because of my foreign looks.  If I were ugly…that would be even worse.  "I would hide away in solitude.  I would write books without ever putting an About the Author, and no one would ever see me.  Or maybe…maybe I would just kill myself."

            Ayame giggles, a piercing noise that sounds wicked when considering what I had just said.  Her laughing subsides quickly, though, and she turns around to reveal her face.

            I step back from the sight of it—it is nothing less than frightening, so ugly it is.  Half her face looks young and beautiful, brimming with life and defined with delicate features, but the other half is ghastly pale, dotted with green blemishes.  Her eye on that side is beady and black, drooping down and creating a thick wrinkle across her cheek, and her lips are white and dead, skinny, pale, lifeless.  I inhale sharply, trying to will my body into running away, but I am caught in her gaze.

            "I was given the power to make people beautiful," Ayame repeats, a sad smile touching the living half of her face.  The other half seems to be relaxed and paralyzed.  "I didn't understand why it was given to me, when I was so ugly myself.  I was warned not to, but I tried anyway—I tried to make myself beautiful.  But as it turns out, Eiri-kun, for better or for worse, you can never hide what you really are."

……………

            "That was fun," Shuichi whispers, lacing his fingers together with mine as he squirms against me.  "Kind of kinky though."  A mischievous smile floats across his face, and he reaches down with his free hand to wipe at my cheek.  "You have dirt on your face."

            "You have dirt all over your body," I reply with a small grin, letting my eyes snake across his naked form pressed against mine.  I allow my eyes to continue to wander, though, until they come to rest on the deep blue sky, it pureness marred only by the occasional puff of white cloud, and framed by the pointed tops of the cornstalks.

            Shuichi giggles and sits up, straddling my waist as he begins to brush away the dirt, which crumbles off easily into dust now that our sweat has dried.  He doesn't get it all, neglecting his back mostly, but once he's satisfied, he returns to his position on top of me and rests his forehead against my chest.

            "I love you, Yuki," he whispers, and I can feel his smile brushing against my bare skin.

            _"I love you, Yuki."_

            My body clenches involuntarily, but it's more than I can hope for Shuichi not to notice.  He pushes himself up again and peers down at me with a worried expression.  "Is something wrong?" he whispers with hurt audible in every sound, and with that voice I am almost led to believe that I am betraying him somehow.

            "It's nothing," I say, and return my eyes to the sky so as to be unable to see whatever expression has crossed his face.

            "Yuki, please tell me what's the matter."

A soft wind whistles over the tops of the cornstalks, and in it I can almost hear Ayame's words ringing back to me:  _"…You can never hide what you really are."_  Sensei had asked me before if I understood the meaning of that story, and I told him I did, even though back then it had no significance for me.  Now, though, that very meaning hits me so painfully that I speak without even thinking about it, breaking the first of my pain for Shuichi to see plainly.

            "Don't call me that," I say hoarsely, closing my eyes.

            I feel Shuichi lean back further on top of me, and his weight shifts to one side.  "What?"

            "Don't call me that.  My name's not Yuki."  I open my eyes again to find him studying me with searching eyes full of both confusion and worry.  I have a sinking feeling in my chest when I find that there is no understanding in those eyes, just the usual dumb naïveté.  A deep-rooted hurt courses throughout my body, transformed into anger as soon as it touches my heart, and I shove Shuichi off me harshly.  He yelps in some imaginary pain, though I ignore him and begin to hastily search out and pull on my clothes, which are now scattered and twisted around the nearby cornstalks.  I gather my shoes and, without bothering to put them on, sprint away towards the house.  I find myself almost sad not to hear Shuichi calling after me, but I quickly push the feeling away. 

Shuichi doesn't deserve me, and I don't deserve him.  I'm only starting to realize that now.  It was the same way with Sensei, so much so that I drove him to do such awful things…  Relationships only work if one person deserves the other more than the other deserves them.  Things can't be equal; it goes against nature.  That has to be the reason…  I can't think of why else this isn't working.

            I enter the house and am greeted with a waft of musky air, littered with the presence of old dust and mold so thick in the atmosphere I can even smell it through my tarred lungs.  The whole house seems all too empty—we still have yet to furnish it, and have so far only put linens on the bed and stocked a few of the cabinets with food.  Shuichi has already gone through and pulled the white sheets from over all the furniture, but even so, the interior is dark and old, leaving me to think that perhaps the white sheets added some brightness to the otherwise dead house.  The only place that looks remotely inhabited is our master bedroom, probably due to Shuichi's colorful clothes scattered around the floor.  I walk over to the ancient wooden dresser and pull my laptop from the top of it, realizing now just how much I've neglected my work.

            The bright light of the glowing white screen gives me the beginning of a headache, which I merely curse and attempt to ignore as I open up my latest project.  I watch as my laptop loads, displaying the lines of Japanese across the screen, and I stare at it in some sort of vague awe, wondering why my mother language looks so foreign all of a sudden.  I lean back against the pillows on the bed, gazing at the novel-in-progress, reluctantly allowing my mind to wander away from my work.

            I don't know why, but I just can't forget what that old man said in the park.  It wasn't something out of the ordinary, and more resembled one of those clichés so commonly present in the mindless chick flicks that Shuichi is so attached to. 

Once you get close enough to death, you realize it's better to be alive than to be pretty…  I've been close enough to death plenty of times, both with my own life and with others', and I still think it's better to be beautiful.  It was just one man's opinion.  If I could die pretty, I would already be dead.  Still, I can't help but wonder what Sensei had known before he died.  The story about Ayame, I only found out later, had never been submitted among his other stories to the hospital he wrote for, and I still am partial to the idea that he had made it up for me that day.  There was Ayame's character, her words and her physical appearance, and it's meaning was all too obvious.  But, deeper down, there's still something I don't quite understand, even now after pondering over it for nearly seven years.  I know there's something there, just by knowing Sensei, there's something that isn't right.  Sensei couldn't write a story so formula.  My memory is too fuddled, though.  I wish I could hear it one more time.  All that I have now is bits and pieces of the story, acted out by my own imagination in my dreams.

            Ayame is beauty.  Ayame is truth.  Ayame whispered to me that I could never hide what I truly am.  I could see Ayame in Sensei's eyes, even after they both had died.  Ayame was sick, just like Sensei…  Just like me.  Ayame was given the power to change other people, when she couldn't change herself.  Ayame laughed when I told her I would kill myself if I became ugly.  That old man laughed at me, too.

            This is giving me a headache.  I've thought about this for much too long, and yet I can't accept that there's nothing more to it than what is on the surface.  When Sensei told me that story, I was so much different than what I am now.  How could he have known what I would become?  How can Ayame's words still make me sick to the stomach, even though I don't understand why?

            I look at the screen of my laptop, eyeing the cursor still blinking at where I left off last time I worked on the story.  I sigh as I close it, thinking about how much I've failed when considering Sensei's grandeur; all I write is mindless drivel for rabid young girls to prey on—in a few years, my work will be forgotten.  I can't even understand the power of Sensei's stories, much less write anything that comes close to having the same strength of meaning.  Something like Ayame is beyond my abilities.

            I put my laptop back into its case, simultaneously removing a few thin packets of paper as I do so, looking over the titles of all the stories printed on them.  I've kept these stories in my case for a long time now, and I'm not sure why.  They're the stories that Sensei had written for the hospital, though none of them are even close to being as good as the Ayame story.  I'm still at a loss as to why Sensei never submitted that one.

……………

            "Do you get it, Eiri-kun?" Sensei asks, leaning his head against the tree.  I frown and look down at the ground.  He's right: I didn't really like that story at all, but I don't want to tell him that.  The problem is, it's not because it's a children's story that I don't like it; it's more like there was some quality to it that I just didn't quite agree with.  When I become an author, I doubt I'll ever write stories like that one.

            "Be yourself," I say, repeating what underdeveloped moral I had picked out.  "Don't hide your true self just because of what other people think."

            "You're wrong," Sensei says, grinning as he touches my nose with his finger.  "But I'm not going to tell you.  You'll have to figure it out by yourself.  It'll be good for you, if you really want to be an author."

            "I probably won't think about it anymore," I reply sullenly, crossing my arms.  I've already fallen into a pouting mood, due to some sort of disappointment I have with the dislike of the first of Sensei's stories I've ever heard.

            "Ah, I guess I can't change that," Sensei says, his grin having yet to falter.  "However, you might want to remember it anyway.  Maybe you'll come to appreciate it someday."

            "Appreciate what?" I mutter, silently wondering if I'm offending Sensei at all, though even if I am, he isn't showing it at all.

            "Appreciate the meaning that this story holds.  You might not be able to see it, Eiri-kun, but this is a commentary on life, with a moral that may come in handy one day.  Though, since you didn't listen hard enough, I suppose it just went over your head."

            His words sting at me a little, as I start to realize that perhaps he's a little disappointed in me for whatever I've failed to understand.  I start to think over the story again, but give up again quickly.  I still can't say I like it.

            "Just think about it," Sensei adds, rising to his feet.  He starts to make his way away from the tree, though he stops before he reaches the end and turns around.  "I'll give you a hint.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Okay, Eiri-kun?"  And with that, he continues to stalk away with his head lowered to the ground, all traces of the grin vanished from his expression.

……………

            "Shh, be quiet!  I'm fine, don't worry."

            The soft whispering draws me away from my sleep, something which I don't remember ever even entering.  I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling, knitting my brow when I realize that it doesn't look that familiar.  Slowly I turn my head to the side to see a large window adjacent to the bed, letting in streams of sunlight illuminating thousands of dust particles contently floating about.  Papers are strewn across my bed, surrounding me in an unorganized attack, and my laptop is on the floor in its case to the side.  I feel incredibly dirty, like I've just been rolling around on the ground.  I'm about to get up to take a shower when I hear another whisper that stills me once more.

            "No, I found his cell phone in his stuff.  He's asleep right now."

            I fall silent, anxiety creeping upon me as I realize once again I am eavesdropping on Shuichi's conversation.  I even shallow my breathing so as not to alert Shuichi to my conscious state.  I assume he's sitting in the hallway outside the room, judging by the sound of his voice, but I dare not turn my head to confirm in fear of rustling the papers around me.

            "I'm fine, really!  I'm sorry I haven't called sooner, but no one here speaks Japanese."

            There was a long pause, in which I was almost worried that Shuichi had crept away, but soon enough his whisper drifted back into the room.

            "I don't know.  I think he's gone crazy.  He just dragged me out here without saying anything.  I'm really worried, actually, because today he said some strange things.  He told me his name isn't Yuki.  You think he could have split personalities, or something?"

            Another pause drifts across the air, though my own welling anger disrupts the stillness and seems to make everything around me tense.  I can't believe he's saying these things to…whomever he's talking to.  It makes it worse when I think that it's probably his new lover.

            "I'm in America.  Uh, Iowa, I think he said."

            I painstakingly push myself into a sitting position, wary of rustling the papers around me and silently cursing myself for leaving such a mess to hinder myself.

            "Iowa's not a city?  Oh, I don't know the name of the city, then.  It's this really little town, and it's surrounded by cornfields, and there's a bunch of old people around.  There's a park in the middle, and next to it is a swimming pool.  Does that help?"

            Shuichi wants to go home.  I don't like this at all.  I can imagine that he's already given away enough information that someone like Seguchi will be able to track us down.  Without bothering to care about the noise of the papers, I angrily exit my bed and march into the hallway, where, sure enough, I find Shuichi leaning against the wall with my cell phone pressed against his ear.  He looks up at me, his face stricken with terror, with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide.  I angrily snatch the phone out of his hands, and without a second thought, shout the very address of our house into the receiver, and then slam the phone onto the floor, breaking it into pieces to reveal its hidden insides.

            I shrug off Shuichi's cries as I storm away, so angry that I barely see where I'm going until I realize I've ended up in the kitchen.  I glare around the room at nothing in particular until my eyes settle on the rack of butcher knives perched on the counter.  Quickly I grab one and shove it behind my back, turning just as Shuichi catches up to me.

            "Yuki…  I…" He trails off, and I smirk at the expression on his face—he's just realized he has nothing planned to say to me.

            "What, Shuichi?  Your friends will be here soon for you," I say, drawing out my words so that they almost sound like a mocking song, my tone cynical to the fault.  "You can go home now to your new lover."

            I have no idea what I'm saying.  I can't control what I'm doing.  This feels like a dream, the kind where one knows what dangers lie ahead and yet proceeds anyway.  Again I become conscious of the knife hidden behind my back, and I worry about it; I'm so angry right now, I'm worried about Shuichi's safety.  The wince on his face because of my words is irritating me beyond reason.

            "I don't want to go home alone.  I want to be with you, I swear!  I love you, Yuki."

            "I told you not to call me that!" I snap, though not just with my words.  I can feel tears gathering in my eyes, and in my head I begin to swear over and over again every obscenity in every language that I know.  Damn Shuichi and his lover.  Damn those old people in this hic town, this house, these cornfields.  Damn that therapist who made me realize what paradise really means.  Damn Sensei and his stupid Ayame!  I'm about to break down in tears at the worst time imaginable, right in front of Shuichi who doesn't deserve to see me like this anymore.

            I really have snapped.  I am crazy.  I can see Sensei's dead eyes staring at me in all their lifelessness, and for once they look so much more beautiful than anything else I've ever seen.

            _"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."_

            If I were to die in fifty years I would not have as beautiful a death if I were to die now.  If I were to tell Shuichi the story of Ayame, maybe I would understand it just a little bit better.

            "That's not the point, Eiri-kun," I hear a voice, a whisper, floating around on the back of the wind.  I look at Shuichi, but he doesn't appear to have heard anything.

            "What do you want me to call you then?" Shuichi asks.  His posture is different now, though I never noticed him change; he looks ready to dart away at any sign of danger, and for that I feel just the slightest bit of relief, for his sake.

            "Call me by my name," I growl, clutching the knife and almost preparing to remove it from behind my back.  "Yuki can't love you.  He died over six years ago!"  I don't bother to wait in suspense to see what Shuichi's reaction is.  I don't wait for the results of his test, to see whether he really understands or if he's not all that I thought he was.  Instead I lash out clumsily with the knife, lacking the usual grace I possess.  I don't think I am really trying to hit Shuichi, but I miss anyway, lunging forward and having to stick my leg out to keep myself from falling onto my own knife.  I hear Shuichi scream, and the noise of his bare feet thumping away on the wooden floor in a frightened escape sets my own nerves off.  I too run away, but in a different direction.

            The bright mid-afternoon sun hits me with a wave of heat so thick and humid I almost feel as if I've been slapped.  My knife glints the bright sun into my eyes, blinding me from being able to see the world, and I stumble with arms flailing out to catch anything to break my fall.  I feel my hand close around something round and vertical, though it merely comes crashing down on top of me once I hit the sand.  I return to my senses to find myself under the protection of the tall cornstalks, shading me from the sun with a welcome kindness, and once again everything becomes quiet.  I am left alone once again to lose myself in the maze of my own thoughts.

            Kitazawa Yuki.  Sensei.

            He died…over six years ago…  He can't love Shuichi any more than he can love me.  What have I been hoping for all this time?

            Yuki, I am merely your ghost.  I've been haunting this earth much longer than I should have.  I've already avenged your death and killed the brat that shot you.  He's been dead along with you for a while now.  I've finished my work.  I think…it's time to go.

            My skin feels almost like loose sand as I bury the knife so easily into it.  The blood that runs down is thick and dark, darker than blood seems like it should be.  I watch as the redness colors my entire arm and trails down onto the ground.  It wants to contaminate everything, to turn everything into a uniform color until nothing stands out and nothing can be seen anymore.  I let my arm fall across my stomach, too weak to hold it up anymore, and let my eyes come to rest on a cob of unripe corn growing peacefully in the middle of a stalk.

            I can see Yuki's silhouette, standing in front of that window, but the glare of the sun doesn't entirely block out all of his features.  I can see his smirk tainting his face, and his eyes glowing with detachment.  Sensei was sick in his mind, and now that I think about it, I suppose I am too.  I was the one so far gone that not even the best psychiatrists could heal me.

            _"When you're in a stressful situation, just think about paradise, a beautiful place."_

            Paradise.  Paradise can be found here in this cornfield, deep among the tall stalks.  Here is a place separate from the world, lingering only for those brave enough to search it out.  Here in the cornfield is an escape from the things that can't be handled.  There is a silence here, reserved just for me.  There is Shuichi, lying under me in the dirt, smiling and mewling and crying out in pleasure as he thinks about only me.  But most of all, in this cornfield, lies death in waiting, thick blood that flows like molasses, darkened by the sunlight's cowardice, carrying with it life itself, and escaping far away into the ground.  That's what truly makes this cornfield paradise—this place that brings about my very own death. 

Six years ago, Kitazawa Yuki never found his paradise.  He never really died, not entirely, because I still held half of his soul, and I've been carrying it around with me all this time.  Uesugi Eiri was the one that really died that day, and now I think it is time to lay Yuki to rest as well.  He asked it of me six years ago, he stared at me with those pleading dead eyes, begging me to put him to death, and now it's time that I finally fulfill his request.

            Goodbye, Shuichi.

……………

TO BE CONTINUED…

(It's not over yet.)

And thank you to all those who have reviewed so far!  Actually, I haven't gotten as many reviews as I would have liked for this story, but I guess that only makes me even more thankful to those who have reviewed.  So, I'll write replies, even though my computer gets really weird if I have more than one program open at a time, which I always do…

So, thank you to:

**Chu** (Yeah, I do like Chinese water torture, but I'm a bigger fan of Chinese hydrogen peroxide torture).  **tatijana **(I'm glad you like it.) **duenna **(I hope you continue to read!) **kitty-nickel **(Thanks for the pointer.  I don't think I'll change anything right now, but the truth is I wrote that first chapter very late at night.  I hope it's getting better now.) **Kikvws **(I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes crazy Yuki.) **Flamingolo **(Well, I always thought that Eiri was kind of crazy for being so mean to Shuichi.) And **Patosan** (Wow, it feels really good to be recognized by someone who I admire myself…  Speaking of which, when are you going to update YOUR story?  I've been waiting awhile now…)

Thank you again, and I hope I don't get in trouble for that!


	4. Chapter 4

**Elysian Fantasies **

**Chapter 4**

_"I promise! I promise I won't call you Yuki anymore! I won't cheat on you! I'll do anything you want for as long as I live! I promise! Please just hold on. Don't die…please…"_

……………

"In order to be great, Eiri-kun, you have to understand the truth about life," Sensei says, motioning in the general direction of the world around us. I glance around the park, silently watching all the other pedestrians strolling along. Everyone looks so different all the time, I begin to forget that anyone is different from anyone else at all. That's what I love about America.

"But no one understands that," I reply lazily, leaning back against the tree, still letting my eyes linger upon the passersby. New York is almost intolerably sunny this time of year, releasing a heat wave laced with thick moisture that becomes painful. Still, no matter how harsh the summer becomes, this tree never fails to protect us. It seems almost magical in a way, like an element of a children's story.

"See? You're already on your way," Sensei says with a slight chuckle. "It's impossible to tell what's real and what's just a figment of our imaginations."

"I'm real," I mutter without even thinking about it. Immediately I begin to rip at what little grass remains around the roots of this gentle tree, almost wallowing in what I've just said, waiting for Sensei to reply.

"You're sure about that?" Sensei says at last, cocking his head to the side with a playful grin on his face. "What is real? What is the truth?" He pauses with a sigh. "In the end, everything comes down to individual beliefs. And it's these beliefs that signify greatness. What do you believe, Eiri-kun?"

"I believe," I start, though my words die away as I wonder what Sensei's trying to get out of me. How many things does one person believe in? I certainly believe in far too many things to be able to list them all out for Sensei. Because of that, I know he's looking for something else, but I find my brain is too fuddled from the heat to be able to ponder it for too long. With a smile of resignation, I continue, "I believe that I really love to write." I can tell right away, though, from the look on Sensei's face, that I didn't given him what he wanted.

"Do you believe in Ayame?" he asks, his eyes hardening as he too gazes out across the park.

"Ayame?" I repeat, mouthing a name that sounds so distant and yet so familiar at the same time.

"Don't you remember her?" Sensei asks kindly, his eyes lightening once again. "No, I suppose you wouldn't. After all she's done to you, I'd choose to forget her too."

"All she's done to me?" I repeat, suddenly aware of my body's reaction to his words. It seems almost frightened, but I'm not sure why. Ayame… Don't I know her?

"That makes me wonder though," Sensei says, his thoughts clouding both his face and his voice, "why you didn't choose to forget me as well."

"Why would I forget you?"

The smile that touches his lips looks almost cruel for a second, and his eyes seem crazed and detached from the world. My body is flooded with fear, and I quickly trip over myself while trying to scamper away. However, the expression is gone as fast as it came, and I allow myself to relax just the slightest bit.

"What I did was much worse than what she did," Sensei says, sadness now masking his face.

"What are you talking about?" I question, sinking back down into the ground now that the potentially dangerous situation has seemingly passed.

Sensei, though, seems to be insisting on ignoring me. "Well, forget Ayame if you so wish it. What about Shuichi? Do you believe in him?"

"In Shuichi…" I whisper, narrowing my eyes in confusion.

"Or maybe to question is, will he believe in you?" Sensei adds, his eyes wandering away from my face, downwards to the ground at my side. "Just look at him."

I follow the direction of Sensei's gaze and find Shuichi lying there limply at my side, once again soaking in the sickeningly dead aura, and now I find, to my very own horror, his eyes are open, staring at me with a blank, dead expression, begging me to release his soul. I let out a strangled scream and scramble backwards, but it is no use, I realize as my hand is jerked forward away from my body, entrapped in the tight fist of Shuichi's death grip. I shriek and try to yank myself away from him, but to no avail; he holds on, his strength never wavering the slightest bit.

"You love him, don't you?" Sensei continues, ignoring my horrified state. "You admitted it to yourself, so why couldn't you admit it to him? Tell me, Eiri-kun, why is that?"

"I was afraid!" I scream out, tugging my hands away, but at sixteen I am still much weaker than I should be.

"Afraid of what?"

"I didn't want to hurt him!" I cry, tears already streaming down my face. "I didn't want him to end up like you!" I swallow my fear for just a second and manage to look down at Shuichi once again, though I find I cannot look away once I catch his eyes, his dead gray eyes, staring at me. I suddenly become aware of my surroundings again, despite my rapt attention to his gaze, and shudder in fear of the darkened apartment and the sun glaring just outside the window. I've been here before. I've seen these eyes before. His cold hand sends shivers down my spine.

"And why would that have happened?"

"How could it not have? It happened to you, Yuki."

I hear Sensei snicker, a wicked noise that twists my heart, though I do not remove my gaze from Shuichi's eyes to see him.

"Who is Yuki? I thought you were Yuki," Sensei says in an almost sarcastic tone, his voice mocking my stupidity. "Shouldn't it have happened to you?"

It should have happened to me, right? It did happen to me. I am Yuki. Shuichi did kill me, didn't he? I am on the ground, in this cadaver, with a chill air enveloping my entire being. I'm staring at Shuichi with these dead gray eyes, begging him with all that I have to release me, to let the last of me out of this body, but his fist still holds onto my hand all too tightly for me to be able to escape.

Wait, no, I don't want to escape. I want to stay here with Shuichi. I'm not Yuki. I shot Yuki six years ago. Yuki's dead, long gone, with only his ghost around to haunt me. I am…

I can see out of the corner of my still eyes the form of a girl leaning on Shuichi's shoulder, her dark hair cascading down over his side. I can tell she's beautiful.

"For better or for worse, you can never hide what you really are, right, Eiri-kun?" she says, her sweet voice trickling into my dead ears. She leans in closer to Shuichi, and I can see her face now, but find that it's only halfway beautiful. It's split into two faces, one side sickly and green, and the other a grotesque mask mimicking beauty, a disgusting façade that makes me want to wretch with the thought of it.

Ayame. I remember her. She's not a fictional character at all.

"Truth can only be found through one's individual beliefs," Sensei says, his voice now seeming distant and faded. "To find the truth, all you have to do is believe. There's only one thing that you really need."

"I… I don't want to leave," I whisper, squeezing Shuichi's hand with all the strength I have left.

I turn my head towards Sensei only to find him lying on the floor, a pool of thick red fluid retreating towards his head instead of staining the floor around him. For the first time he looks peaceful, his eyes closed and a wry grin on his face, resembling the expression he would always wear when napping under the shade of that tree. I look up at the window as the glaring sun warily begins to creep inside, venturing into the darkness and vanquishing it. It brings with it the humidity of the summertime Iowa as it coats everything it touches in its whiteness. The shade under the tree disappears, and the tree withers in the heat. The field of corn is filled with the loud roar of a tractor as each stalk is plowed over to welcome the light. And this apartment, this New York apartment, is engulfed in the glittering sunshine, banishing the gray tones of darkness into an oblivion, causing Ayame, in her white kimono, to slowly blend into its embrace, and burying Sensei's body bit by bit until his death is once again only a memory.

This light, this white sunshine, is so bright that it burns the inside of my head, but I do not look away and merely fall into a trance, admiring the sheer beauty of it—this void in which nothing exists but true beauty untainted. I don't want to look away, so amazed I am, but find my eyes distracted anyway by the new presence of Shuichi's head in my lap. At first I worry that he's dead, so still he is, but the worry soon subsides when I note that there is no possible way he could be dead and look so alive at the same time. I reach over with my other hand, the one that is not tightly caught in his grasp, to stroke his hair, but a sharp pain catches me off guard, and I can only throw my head back into the new softness the lies behind it.

The world suddenly becomes strangely clearer than what it was before, though I cannot exactly describe the difference entirely. My eyes scan the room around me, and I realize for the first time that the overwhelming sunlight has subsided just the slightest bit, revealing to me new surroundings of a white room with white accessories, and an atmosphere containing that sharp stinging smell present only in hospitals. My gaze falls on the open window revealing a blue sky and the peak of a tall pine tree. The drapes sway in a somewhat humid breeze, but I welcome the heat, accepting that it is something that accompanies the light always, hand in hand. Nothing is perfect.

"You woke up after all," the familiar pristine voice whisks its way into the silence, not quite interrupting it, but rather adding to its gentleness. "You lost so much blood, the doctors practically told us you would die."

I turn my eyes to the other side of the room, feeling too weak to turn my whole head, to find Seguchi sitting there, though looking quite the contrary to what I had expected. His whole being emanates weakness and exhaustion, showing not just in his physical posture, but surfacing even more clearly in his tired eyes. Still, despite that, he looks more relieved than I've ever seen him before. I find him an overly welcoming sight.

"You sure caused us a lot of trouble this time, Eiri-san," Seguchi continues, smiling light-heartedly, allowing his relief to brighten his eyes. I know his joking words are being pulled from some strength he has deep within him which he is now offering to me to aid me in my weakness. I silently accept it, now feeling as though even gravity is fighting against me. I turn my eyes over to the side of my bed, where I see the blood transfusion still working its way into my veins. I watch as the blood slowly trickles down the small plastic tube, finding a small comfort in realizing that this blood is the color blood should be. Although still a rather dark red, it bears no resemblance to that alien liquid that soaked that floor around Sensei's head or that had slithered down my arm beneath the cornstalks.

For the first time since I regained consciousness, though that precise time is still lost to me, I become aware of the light breath against my arm, tickling it slightly with its rhythm. I look down to see Shuichi draped across my thighs, his brow furrowed as he tightly clutches my hand in what seems to be a rather fitful sleep. If I were not so weak, I would probably be smiling at his obvious wariness, even in his sleep, of the bandage around my wrist. I ignore the penetrating gaze of Seguchi, which I can feel lingering on me, and continue to watch Shuichi, feeling my body relax a little more just at the sight of him.

"Mika-san is on her way now," Seguchi's voice flutters once again into my ears, though this time it seems more like an interruption. I see in my peripheral vision him rise to his feet. "I don't know what happened to you here in Iowa, or why you did what you did, but I assume you two have some things you need to talk about. I suggest you try to work it out before she gets here."

With that, his form retreats away from me through the door, and I wait until the silence returns fully before squeezing Shuichi's hand in an attempt to wake him. He stirs slightly, mumbling incoherently into the hospital blanket, and shifts his position, but otherwise does not respond. I open my mouth and halfway whisper his name, surprised to find my voice hoarse, and squeeze his hand again, receiving the desired result. His eyes flutter open in a graceful movement, reminding me of a butterfly floating along the wind. They too hold a hint of exhaustion, but the overpowering relief and pure ecstasy that swamps them once he catches my eyes destroy every last hint of said exhaustion instantly.

"Yu—" he starts, but cuts himself short as guilt clouds his eyes, and the previous exhaustion surfaces a little once more. He quickly lowers them, and his gaze lingers on the bandage on my arm. "I mean, Eiri… I…" He stops, and lifts his eyes to me once again with astounding resolve welling inside them. "I'm sorry! I'm such an idiot, and a bad lover! All this time I resented you for ignoring me, and I didn't even realize—" His words trail off into tears, and with a soft whine he buries his face into my thigh again, muffling his voice so that I have to concentrate to understand what he says next: "I don't deserve you. I said all those mean things, not even understanding that you were hurting… This is all my fault."

I lift my arm to touch him, though I am highly dismayed to find that the transfusion is preventing me from being able to reach him. Gathering my strength, I begin to push myself into a sitting position, but before my dull senses have a chance to react, Shuichi is right next to my head, pushing me down by my shoulders, tears still shimmering in his eyes.

"No, be careful," he cries, though he doesn't know that I did that on purpose to get him closer to me. I reach up with my left hand, now freed from Shuichi's grasp, and touch his face gently, noticing that I can barely feel his skin due to the numbness in the tips of my fingers.

"Shuichi," I whisper, my voice having deserted me in my weakness. "We're both idiots. I didn't trust you as much as I should have. I—" Suddenly memories of the events that occurred come rushing into my mind unbidden, reminding me of the sour things that happened on both our parts, and it takes all my energy to suppress a gasp. Guilt washes over my entire body, and despite my weakness, I shudder. Shuichi's worried eyes appear before me, and his mouth opens to question me, but I continue before he has a chance to ask, squeezing my eyes closed as I speak. "I almost cut you, Shu. I almost cut you…like I cut myself. How could…"

A soft finger pressed against my lips silences me, and I open my eyes to find Shuichi shaking his head gently. "None of that matters anymore," Shuichi whispers, his voice so soft it's almost at the level of mine. "All of that is in the past now, and it's okay because you did what you had to do. I understand, now, what you need from me." He leans forward and brushes his own luscious lips against mine, but pulls away too quickly, leaving me feeling cold and wanting more. "Right, Eiri-chan? You need a new name, one that isn't so painful to hear all the time. And I have to perfect thing for you." He leans back, a playful grin crossing his face, as he builds the suspense in his long silence. Finally, he breaks it, lifting his finger in the air and practically shouting out his decision with a childish glee. "Shindou Eiri! How's that?"

I roll my eyes, though not without a small smile tugging at my lips, as I mutter, "Forget it," and turn my head to the other direction.

"What?" I hear Shuichi shriek from the other side of me, a frustrated whine in his voice. "But you said you didn't like your old names! You need a new one!"

"Like I need three different names," I say, turning towards him again. My smile grows larger at the exasperated look on his face. He's always been too easy to pick on.

"I thought you said…" his voice trails off, and a look of both defeat and sadness cross his face. I feel guilt pour inside of me, and I reach up to take his chin in my hand.

"I'm just kidding, idiot," I say, surprised that my voice is already returning to normal, the whisper having all but disappeared. "I think that's just fine." I drop his chin and lean forward on my elbow, pushing myself up so that our faces are close. "You're right. You have figured out what I need. And I hope I've figured out what you need too," I say, my voice falling back into a whisper, though not because of my weakness. I close the small space between us, pressing my lips against his in a light kiss, but fall back onto the bed much too soon.

"E-Eiri, are you okay?" Shuichi gasps, leaning forward slightly with his eyebrows knitted in worry. I grab his shirt collar and drag him down closer to me, the corners of my lips betraying my otherwise angry expression.

"I love you, Shuichi," I say, pulling him the rest of the way down to continue the kiss. I can feel his whole body tense with shock at my words, but soon enough he melts just as expected, moaning softly with tears of joy cascading down his cheeks. I can feel this joy myself, returning to me my strength, as I wish for this kiss to last forever and beyond.

……………

I study the cigarette caught between my fingers, burned halfway down, smoke twisting and snaking its way up from the tip, in a sad attempt to distract myself from what I now feel so obligated to do. The cursor on the screen blinks on and off in a strong rhythm, interrupted only when I make an alteration to the words there, something that I haven't done for the past two weeks. My deadline is next week, but I sincerely doubt I'll make it; I'm not even trying anymore. Well, actually, I take that back. I've been trying too hard to work on this stupid piece, though all my efforts have been in vain. As I read over what I've already completed, I find myself almost disgusted with the quality of writing that I've so far put into this, or lack thereof. I've always wondered what draws so many people to my books to make me as popular as I am, but now I am almost repulsed that they read it at all, much less obsess over it. It's not that good. I thought my popularity was a testament to my greatness, but now that I critique my own writing, I find that it pales in comparison with anything Sensei wrote. And yet, no matter how hard I try, I can't make my stories as powerful as his. It is, to say the least, frustrating.

I am almost relieved when Seguchi pokes his head into my study, smiling that sickeningly sweet smile as he invites himself inside. He greets me cordially, though as usual I only reply with an irritated glare, despite that I actually welcome his presence. He's been coming to visit me everyday since I returned to Japan, though I still have yet to figure out whether it's his own choice or on orders from my sister. Apparently Mika didn't take it too well when she learned of what I did to myself, and now is almost too afraid, or maybe too shamed, to come to see me that often, so I assume as usual she has her husband do her dirty work. Sometimes Mika's dominatrix attitude towards Seguchi surprises me—although Mika's always been pushy to get her own way, I'd have hardly believed it if I didn't see with my own eyes someone as powerful and controlling as Seguchi caving in to her will. It's comic, actually, though I'm sure they get a great deal more pleasure out of my relationship with Shuichi—when it's not giving them nightmares. All I can say is at least they didn't blame this incident on Shuichi, which they certainly have been very apt to do in the past, and attempt to separate us again. Maybe they think I'm too fragile for that right now, but anyway I'm thankful that they're staying out of it.

The truth is, I realize what happened is actually mostly my fault. Shuichi barely had any say in what went on, and it's only because I'm so screwed up inside that things went so wrong. Guilt still tarries inside of me, but I know that I still need Shuichi, so I accept the way things are now. As I said before, nothing is perfect.

"Sorry to disturb your work, Eiri-san," Seguchi says, looking uncertain whether to leave with his apology or loiter around to complete his objective.

"I'm not working," I say, closing the document with the click of the mouse. I smile with something that I can only describe as resembling relief as the words on the screen disappear into the dull background on my laptop's desktop.

"Oh?" Seguchi mutters idly, and an awkward silence enters the room. I turn to glare at him, though his eyes have already been turned to the ground.

"Do you have something to say?" I ask angrily.

"I just came to see how you are."

"I'm fine," I spit out. I'm not sure why I'm being so hostile; it's not like I actually really mind his presence at all, but I guess I've always been this way around him, around everybody, actually. I haven't truly changed all that much since I first met Shuichi—just enough, I suppose, to be able to keep him by my side.

"That's good."

I do admit, though, that idle banter such as this drives me crazy. I roll my eyes, trying to think of something to say that would perhaps launch us into a real conversation. I think back to all the confusion I was experiencing in Iowa, when my nightmares seemed to have decided to carry out a full frontal attack on me. Since that last dream in the hospital, all my nights have been rather peaceful, to my surprise. It's almost as if in that last dream I reached some sort of enlightenment. Not that I'd call myself enlightened—my father would probably gut me alive if he ever heard me say that—but something definitely clicked that day. Still, that's not to say that everything's once again clear and easy. There has been something bothering me for a while now.

"Seguchi," I start, reluctance clouding my words. "Did you…ever read anything that Yuki wrote?"

I can almost feel Seguchi's body stiffen at my words, but his smile only becomes larger. "Yes, I read a few things."

"Did you ever read a children's story about a girl named Ayame?"

I watch him blink with an unreadable expression clinging to his face. I try to decipher it, but fail miserably. It almost looks like fear, but that can't be right.

"Ayame," he repeats and immediately forces a smile back onto his lips. "Eh, I don't think Kitazawa-san ever wrote anything like that."

I frown at him, and turn my eyes back to my laptop, which has now activated its screensaver. Hundreds of white dots drift across a black background, looking like stars flying past in space. Shuichi always liked this one—he would watch for hours trying to see if he could find where the screensaver looped. I found it amazing how something so simple could entertain someone with such a short attention span for so long. "Are you sure?"

"It would be a huge coincidence if he did, don't you think?" Seguchi asks, attracting my gaze once again. My frown grows larger as I question him with my eyes. I have no idea what he meant by that.

"Coincidence?"

Seguchi blinks again, a cautious expression crossing he face. He looks like he's worried that if he goes on he'll cause me to cut myself again, so I urge him to continue. "Don't you remember Ayame-san?"

"No," I reply quickly, my own inner suspense reaching the maximum. I think back to my dream in the hospital, when I said to myself that Ayame isn't a fictional character. I can't remember what I thought when I woke up from that, but now I have a sickening feeling that Ayame doesn't belong to Sensei at all.

"Well, now that I think about it, I guess it doesn't surprise me that you would choose to forget her," Seguchi says, almost to himself, before turning meaningful eyes back onto me. "It was just after you returned to Japan after…the incident six years ago. I don't know how you met Ayame-san, but you did take quite a liking to her rather quickly. But, um, she was sick…and you were the one who found her body."

I turn away from Seguchi and stare at my computer's screensaver, watching it in an almost hypnotic trance, as I think about what he just said. I try to remember when and how I had come to believe Ayame to be a story that Sensei told me in New York. Perhaps he had told me a different one after all, and in these past years I have slowly grafted Ayame onto whatever he had said in the first place. I don't like this. I don't like to think that my memories are all screwed up too. This seems like something close to schizophrenia. How could I have just made up my own memories and believed them to be so true without even realizing what I had done?

Almost as if he were reading my thoughts, Seguchi speaks again with his own answer. "Don't fret about it, Eiri-san. That was a very stressful time for you, and I'm sure you've warped everything in your mind as a coping device. You're fine now, aren't you? The past is the past, and you don't have to worry about it anymore."

That actually provides me with a bit of relief, but I remain silent, pondering again what I've just learned. Ayame was sick and died. Half of her face was what she looked like when she was alive, half of her face when she was dead. In my dream, I remember thinking that the dead half was the most beautiful, because it was her true half and wasn't hidden under a fake mask. Sensei said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Sensei said that truth is based on individual beliefs. Or was I saying that to myself?

I let my head fall into my palm, rubbing my temples for what feels like the start of a headache.

Ayame is my character after all. Sensei didn't make her up. She was created in my own mind based on someone I actually knew. Ayame is my story.

"Eiri-san, I probably should be going soon," Seguchi says, making his way towards the door. "You're still recovering, so don't worry yourself to illness, okay?" He reaches for the door handle and opens it, but pauses before leaving. "I've read some of Kitazawa's stories. I know that you admired that man, but you have to understand it's been a really long time and you've gone through a lot since you knew him. Time and stress twists things in our minds." He lets out a sigh. "Kitazawa was a struggling author. He was an expert at the technicalities of writing, but his stories and plots were lacking greatness. I hired him as your teacher because I knew that you liked to write, and I thought he'd be able to teach you well. Your romance novels are much better than anything he ever could have created. Think about that, Eiri-san." With that, he continues on his way, and I watch him through my fingers as he closes the door behind him. The cigarette in my hand is almost burned past use, so quickly I take a whiff and then stub it out in the ashtray. Something about his parting words has cleared my mind of all those previous thoughts, and I am left feeling emptily relaxed.

I never once thought that I might have already surpassed Sensei in skill. But then, if Ayame is actually really mine, I suppose that maybe what Seguchi said is right after all.

I reopen the word processor once more, though this time I do not open my last work-in-progress. On the blank document in bold I type, "Ayame," and pause to consider it.

Maybe if I told Shuichi the story of Ayame, the girl who was given the power to change people but couldn't change herself, I would understand it better. Or maybe Shuichi would be the one to understand it.

……………

I can hear the loud racket of the television in the living room all the way back here in my room. I don't know why the brat has to listen to just about everything at such a deafening volume—seems like in a few years he won't able to hear a goddamn thing, and it'll be his fault he won't be able to sing anymore. He's just lucky I'm not working right now, or else I'd be pissed.

Well, maybe not pissed. Just irritated.

Of course, I can't exactly say that I'm not irritated now, but at least it's not because of Shuichi. Right now I am fully exploring the frustrating experience of trying to bandage my arm with only one hand. It's not working. Not at all. Actually, I don't really _have_ to bandage my wrist anymore, since now that it's started to heal it's less likely to get infected, but the stitches are too ugly for me not to cover them up. In fact, the entire wound is pretty disgusting—dark, crusty colors of red, blue, and purple are all clumped together beneath the yellow stitches in a scab so thick it protrudes from my skin in a mound. I wince just from the sight of it. I don't want Shuichi to be able to see this.

I think about the scar that it will most likely leave on my skin as I resign myself to wearing long sleeves for the rest of my life. Not that I don't wear long sleeves all the time anyway, but something about _having_ to wear them seems unsettling. I shrug off the thought, though, and begin once more in another attempt at applying the bandage, but I find a jumble of curses issuing from my mouth as I continue to fail in my endeavors. I feel my temper about to snap, when the phone shrieks, pushing me right over the edge. I snatch it out of its cradle, and bring it up to my ear, opening my mouth and preparing to shout.

"What do you want?" I bark into the phone, deciding that it's probably one of two people: either my editor, calling to remind me that the deadline for the novel that I've already scrapped is next week, or one of the Seguchi's, either Mika or her husband, calling to 'check up' on me.

…I suppose that's actually three people. Ah well, the two Seguchi's can be lumped into one person anyway, they're both so similarly annoying.

"Uh," the voice on the other line grunts, and I realize that it is not any of the people I had considered after all. This voice, though, seems eerily familiar, and yet I can't quite place it with any face floating around in my head at this time.

"Well?" I ask impatiently, debating whether or not to just hang up.

"Is, uh, is Shuichi there?" the person stutters, and I lift my eyebrow. Despite his so-called popularity, Shuichi rarely gets any phone calls, and when he does, it's generally on his own cell phone.

"Hold on," I mutter, and set the phone onto the nightstand. I'm actually tempted to just leave the phone there and return to my bandaging without notifying Shuichi so this person will just wait until he gets bored and hangs up. I'm surprised I don't do that, really, knowing that I would get some sick pleasure out of it, but instead I call out Shuichi's name, being much too lazy to actually bring the phone to him.

I find my irritation growing, however, when my only response is the deafening tones of the TV. I call his name again, but don't even bother to wait for a response before grabbing the phone and bringing it with me into the living room.

The noise from the TV is even worse in the same room as the speakers, and quickly I grab the remote, clicking it off abruptly and allowing my ears some peaceful recovery.

"Hey, I was watching that!" Shuichi whines, leaning forward in his seat and glaring up at me with the fiercest eyes he can muster. Which, to say the least, aren't exactly all that intimidating, considering his overall flaming appearance. I merely smile back at him, doing my best to make it look sinister, and throw the phone onto the couch next to him.

"It's for you," I mutter, and start to turn in order to return to my room, but I reconsider and instead circle the couch, collapsing into it opposite of Shuichi.

"Wow, I didn't even hear it ring," Shuichi says, as if it's a phenomenon with no plausible explanation. He picks it up happily, screaming "hello" much too excitedly into the mouthpiece, and I watch as the color drains out of his face once the other person speaks. My eyebrows knit in concern as I stare at him, though he quickly notices my gaze. "Are you staying here?" he asks in almost a whisper.

"Do you want me to leave?" I reply, challenging him to say yes, as I lace my fingers behind my head against the armrest. I have to concentrate on suppressing a wince, though, when a dull pain rushes from the contact with my wound, and perhaps a little too quickly I move it from behind my head.

"No, it's okay," Shuichi says nervously, and then returns his attention to the phone. "I'm here. Tonight? No, I can't tonight… No, I can't."

I begin to fiddle with the bandage again, wrapping it around my arm messily, leaving uncomfortable folds and openings, as jealousy begins to course through me. I have a feeling he's talking to his other lover.

"Eiri," Shuichi says, putting the phone between his head and shoulder as he crawls on top of me. I almost feel uncomfortable with him there, considering that the phone is still connected, but I do not protest. "You should ask for help with things like this," he whispers, taking the bandage from my hand and unwrapping what I've already done. His eyes linger on the thick wound there, and once I realize it, I pull my hand away, hiding it against my shirt.

"Shuichi—" I start, but am interrupted by his phone conversation.

"I said no! I told you, not anymore!" Shuichi cries, anger crossing his face. I stare at him—it's rare to see him angry, but when he is, I must admit that he's…pretty cute.

Giving in to my temptation, I touch his waist, which isn't close to being covered by his shirt, and run my hands down along his skin, across his short shorts, and down his legs, stroking his thighs until he releases a soft moan and leans forward in an attempt to chase away my hands.

"Stop it," he whines, and then pushes the phone closer to his mouth. "No, I mean—" The look of confusion on his face is appealing, to say the least. "No, stop asking!"

"What's he asking, Shuichi?" I whisper, smiling up at him as I return my hands to their former ministrations, eliciting another delightful moan from his throat.

He pulls away and gives me a naughty look. "Something I would reserve for you alone," he replies, giggling a little, and then turns to the phone again. "No, I wasn't talking to you. Listen, I'm kind of busy right now—" he stops again, frowning for a moment, and I can see anger crossing his face again. At last, he loses his temper, something even more rare than him being angry. "I said no!" he shrieks, his body tense above me. "I'm Eiri's lover again, so LEAVE ME ALONE!!!" His rage gets the better of him, and he throws the phone, causing it to crash against the floor and practically shatter, as much as plastic can shatter. He stares at it for a while, his anger slowly turning into guilt, and he looks down at me apologetically. "I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to break it!" he whines, looking at me expectantly.

"That leaves us with only your cell phone, since I've already broken mine," I say with a practiced anger in my voice, and Shuichi looks away from me. I smile as he does so, and then reach up to turn his head back towards me. "I guess that means no one will be calling and interrupting us, right?"

A smile brightens his face, and he collapses down onto my chest, mewing in a soft glee. He stops quickly though, and lifts himself halfway up. "Oh, do you want me to bandage you arm?"

"Later," I whisper, running my hands across him again. He giggles when I hit a ticklish spot and pushes my hands away. It turns into a bit of a game, and although I understand the very act of it proves that maybe I am gay after all, I don't even think about stopping, I am so ensconced in Shuichi's cheerful laughter, until his hand tightens around my left wrist, sending a sharp pain down my arm. I let out a gasp and pull away from him, clasping my wrist just above the cut in an attempt to stop the circulation so that the throbbing will subside.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you!" Shuichi cries, lifting his hands towards me to help, but stopping halfway there as if in fear of touching me.

"It's okay," I say, trying to ignore the pain, which has already receded down into a dull throb. A painful silence overcomes the apartment, and I shift uncomfortably under Shuichi because of it.

"Eiri," Shuichi whispers, peering down at my eyes sadly. He takes my damaged arm into his hand and looks at it for a moment before returning his eyes to me. "You won't…ever… You won't do this…again, will you?" A deep worry overruns his eyes, causing them to gather shimmering tears.

_"You'll realize later, when you come close enough to death, that it's better to be alive than to be pretty." _

It's strange how some things that seemed so irrelevant in the past can come floating back one day, fresh as spring, an unbidden memory but welcome all the same, carrying with it the very essence of the most pressing problem.

"Never. Not so long as you're here with me," I whisper, allowing my lips to open in a smile.

The tears in Shuichi's eyes disappear, and he drops my arm. "Then I promise, Eiri, that I won't ever leave you, not now, not a hundred years from now when we're both gross, fuzzy old men."

"Shuichi," I say, grabbing the small of his back and bringing him down on top of me again. "I don't think you'll ever be able to be fully considered a 'man,' old or not." For all my teasing, I can't help but admit that his words hold some reassurance for me, a comfort that far surpasses anything I've felt so far. I don't feel so close to the edge anymore, and it's nice to have solid ground under my feet for once.

"That's mean!" he whines, burying his face contently into my chest. I wrap my arms around him, tight enough for comfort but loose enough to allow him to snuggle in against me. I let out a sigh as I study my surroundings with thoughtful eyes. It's not particularly silent, calm, dark, or any of the other things I had prized before. And yet, here in Shuichi's arms, I feel as though I have everything I've ever wanted. It's a far cry from being perfect, but for now, I can only think that this is what I've been searching for. This is what has occupied all my fantasies up to date. This is a reality that far surpasses anything I've ever thought possible.

This is my paradise.

……………

THE END

……………

Whooo. That was a pretty long chapter, eh? Well, to make up for the last ones, which were about a thousand words shorter than the first one, this one is about a thousand words longer. Ha! Kinda corny, though, huh? What can I say? I'm a sucker for happy endings. Well, I hope you all enjoyed it, and thank you to everyone who has read it, even those who didn't like it and/or didn't review. After all, I know what it's like to read something and either like it or dislike, and yet not know what to say in a review (of course, I do encourage you to review, because it really does make me feel good). So, here's some more review replies (if I miss you, sorry. Probably caused by the confusion in that this is posted in 2 places, and that FF.Net seems to have really slow reactions to any changes):

**Flamingolo** (I'm glad I could have such an effect on you.) **Kittie** (Yeah, I kinda wanted him to kill Shuichi too, since I had to get into Yuki's mindset for this, but that would have just been too sad for me.) **Kikvws** (Uh, I don't know who browniepts is, but I'm glad they told you to also! Sorry, no lemons…I'm not good at that unless it's for humor's sake, which this definitely isn't…) **Maki** (Sorry if I made you wait too long, and I'm glad that you enjoyed my style.) **Celeste** (I would have replied to your email, but I'm too lazy and would rather just put it in here . I'm glad you liked the way I did the dreams—I was a little worried about that.) **phoinos **(Thank you, that does make me feel a bit better about myself. Yay, self-esteem raising one point!) **Ellechan **(I'm glad that you like it, and I hope you get to read this last chapter.) **Draco Serpens** (It makes me happy to think that people enjoy and can identify with this.) **Patosan** (I'm glad you were interested in the Ayame story, and I hope you're satisfied even though I didn't actually explain it fully. I decide that it's up to the readers to make their own conclusions. That's the best part of stories.) **Red-Mizu** (I'm glad you like it. I hope I updated soon enough for you.)

Wow, more than the amount of reviews compared to the first two chapters combined! I hope that means that the last chapter was better, but I dunno. I'm just happy anyway. Anyway, I was surprised at how many times while writing this story I encountered allusions to old people and corn in my everyday life. And it made me laugh every time.

Thank you again to everyone!!! It's summertime now, so I'll probably quit with the angst, which seems to be so school-related, and revert back to my humor roots. Hope to see you soon!

Oh, yeah. I always forget this. Gravitation does not belong to me. I am just using it as means to improve my writing skills, so please don't hold anything against me.

The end.

Cassiopeia.


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